Raven’s hand squeezes mine, and we watch as Victoria pulls something from behind her.

A book.

She opens it somewhere in the middle, like she’s already made it through the first half of what must be three hundred pages and begins to read out loud.

She reads to my baby girl, and my family and I sit here and listen.

Victoria shifts on the mattress, her long blonde hair falling over her shoulders and blocking her face from the camera’s view, and right as I think how I wish I could push it aside, how I need to see her lips as the words leave them, a hand slides into view, doing exactly that.

Victoria looks up, and in her eyes, I see pain, fear, and it aches within my own chest.

What were you afraid of?

She quickly stands from the mattress, the camera shutting off right as Mallory calls her name.

It rolls into another video, and then another, each one Mallory is there, and her belly grows bigger.

In the next, the wind blows Mallory’s hair around as she stands in front of a bed of flowers.

She must hear something I don’t, because she turns, frowning at the camera.

“How do you feel?” Victoria asks her.

Mallory’s shoulders fall. “Like someone is playing soccer in my stomach.”

Raven chuckles, her free hand moving to her own baby bump, and Maddoc slides closer to her back.

“It’s kind of annoying,” she says to Victoria.

Raven says the exact words that leave Victoria next, and at the same time, “It’s not annoying.”

Mallory rolls her eyes and moves closer to the screen.

She reaches out, and then the camera is dropped, but not turned off, the frame tilted and only giving a view of half their bodies.

She grabs a hold of Victoria’s wrist and drops it onto the curve of her stomach.

Victoria’s muscles seem to freeze, but then she relaxes, and with slow, gentle movements, she opens her palms wider.

Seconds tick by, her airy laugh following, and my pulse runs wild, kicks harder.

“Basketball,” she whispers.

We were on her mind right then.

I was on her mind.

The father of the baby she’s watching grow, that she didn’t know and had no reason to link herself to.

But she did it for the innocent little life beneath her palms.

The video rolls into the next, and I shoot to my feet, moving closer to the TV.

A hospital...

Holy shit.

Mallory’s cries fill the room.

“I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this.” A shuddered breath leaves her. “I should have had the abortion like I was going to before you dragged me out of that office and talked me into this.”

No...

I swear my ribs snap one by one.

“No, you shouldn’t have, and I didn’t stop you. I offered another way, and yes you can, just… breathe,” Victoria tells her.

“Get that stupid camera out of my face,” Mallory snaps.

“I can’t. This isn’t for you.”

Suddenly Mallory’s cries grow louder, and my heart starts to pound in my chest, breaking away the final layer of ice the last few days created.

Tears fall from her and she frantically pushes her legs around beneath the blanket covering her.

“Oh fuck,” Raven rasps, but I can’t look at her.

My eyes are glued to the TV.

“Just a little longer,” Victoria whispers.

Mallory’s breathing starts to smooth out, her eyes sliding toward the screen.

She cries, “It hurts.”

There’s a moment’s hesitation, and then the camera is set down.

My eyes are locked on Mallory’s as hers move around the room, trailing Victoria, I think, and then she’s at her bedside, a cloth in one hand, her other, sliding into one of Mallory’s.

My lungs allow a full breath as she pats at Mallory’s face with the small towel, cold or warm, I don’t know.

Mallory sits up as much as she can until her forehead is against Victoria’s, and Victoria lets the cloth fall, her hand coming up to gently move Mallory’s hair from her face.

“Why haven’t you left, Vee? I’m awful to you.”

“You’re alone, fifteen, and having a baby. I might be awful too if I was in your shoes.” Her eyes move between hers a moment, and then she sits on the edge of the bed. “Are you afraid?” she whispers.

“Not for reasons you probably think,” Mallory admits. “Only of the pain.”

When Victoria doesn’t respond, Mallory says to her, “You think I’m making a mistake.”

“I’m not here to judge you.”

“But you have an opinion.”

Victoria slips behind her, pulling her hair back and begins braiding it. “Only you know if you’re not ready to be a mom. That’s your decision, and if you’re not and you know it, then... I think admitting that makes you stronger than anyone I know.”

Victoria’s words twist and turn inside in cold despair.

Strong. She called her strong.

Was she?

“But?”

Victoria sighs, her arms falling to her sides. “But it’s weak, and wrong, that the father is out there, someone who would want and love her in a heartbeat, and you don’t want to give him the chance.”

Mallory looks over her shoulder, meeting Victoria’s eyes. “He’d kill me.”

“And your life is more important than your child’s?”

“I don’t want to be a mother, and I don’t want the reminder that I am anywhere near me. You said if I stayed locked in this damn place, had this baby, you’d keep her away from me, hide her, and set me up. That I could go on with my life like this never happened, and worth a hell of a lot more.”

I swear moisture builds in Victoria’s eyes at the foul fucking words spoken by Mallory, but she blinks them away.

You lying bitch.

My chest tightens, my pulse hitting against my temples as she readies to speak, but Mallory’s face pulls tight, and she cries out right as a doctor comes in.

The woman lifts the blanket from Mallory’s legs and looks up with a smile.

“It’s time,” she says.

“Maddoc,” Raven breathes behind me.

Mallory pants, shaking her head, and right as I think it, my words are voiced.

“You can do this,” Victoria whispers.

“Okay, Mallory,” the doctor calls. “Time to push.”

My heart beats wild, emotions I can’t control taking over and stealing the air from my lungs as I move to stand directly in front of the TV.

Victoria holds her hand as Mallory screams and cries and pushes, and then I hear her.

The softest scream, a fresh, brand new, first cry.

Her first second in this world.

Her first breath.

Moisture fills my eyes, and my jaw shakes as my baby girl is lifted into view. My feet jerk to the side when suddenly I can no longer see her.

“Congratulations,” the doctor says. “It’s a girl.”

The nurse slides back into view a few torturously slow minutes later, and in her arms, wrapped tight in a tiny cocoon of teal and pink, a little striped beanie on her head, my baby girl cries. With the sound, my heart fucking sings.

The woman leans over, prepared to hand her to her mother, and my ribs ache as Mallory denies her, closing her eyes and looking away.